Photo series

Jean Daniel Lorieux

Biography

Jean Daniel Lorieux feels locked up at the Jesuits in Arts et Métiers in Paris, which he will leave to go to the Cours René Simon. The war of Algeria, where he must perform his military service, projects him into the job of photographer and filmmaker where he made very tough pictures.

Since 1970 he works for Vogue USA and Vogue France as a photographer. Major cou-turiers such as Dior, Céline, Lanvin, Guy Laroche, Courrèges, Rabane, Scherrer, Ricci, and Cardin entrust him the realization of their advertising campaigns.

For 10 years, after having approached Andy Warhol, Jean Daniel Lorieux launched into the oil portrait painting.

The Master and Margarita Project

In 2008, the Russian businessman Evgeny Yakovlev was, in his own words, «so marked by the reading of The Master and Margarita that he liked to introduce this work to a broader public». He asked Jean Daniel Lorieux to realize the project.

On the background of the famous and recognizable natural decors of Moscow you can see Margarita, interpreted by the French actress Isabelle Adjani, the master, represented by the Russian actor Vladimir Kochevoy, and Woland represented by Igor Khokhlovkin, except for the role of Woland as a knight in the last chapter, because that role was claimed by Yevgeny Jakovlev himself.

«Basically, many things in this project occurred spontaneously», says Evgeny Yakovlev. «I cannot say exactly how I came to the idea of it. And it was pretty much the same for the choice of the stars. We decided that it was necessary to create something inspired by a known novel. The first one of which we could think was Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita.»

«At the beginning everything was conceived as a commercial thing. But while working on this project, we ended up understanding that it was necessary to think only of artistic side. The international team consisted of 60 professionals. All were blazed for this project. Everything went so easily, as by itself. You can say that it was not a job, but a creation that brought pleasure.»

First Yakovlev made a career in the banking world. After that, he became general director of the machine factory Силовые машины [Silovye Mashiny], and currently he is the president of Атомстройэкспорт [Atomstroyexport], the Russian Federation's nuclear power equipment and service export monopoly which is linked to Gazprom.

The fact that Yakovlev spent 2 million euro to be photographed together with Isabelle Adjani may raise suspicions about his real intentions but, frankly speaking, most of the photos are beautiful. Especially the ones with Isabelle Adjani. The photos with Yakovlev himself look rather ridiculous.

After its successful presentation at the Ariane Dandois gallery in Paris at the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009, the exhibition moved to London and New York, to end eventually on its starting point, as a return to its roots, in Moscow, where the photos were shown from March 28, 2009, until April 28, 2009. It was at the Spiridonov House, right behind the corner of the place where the master met Margarita and where Mikhail Bulgakov met his third wife Elena Sergeevna.

Jean Daniel Lorieux

Illustrations

Use the arrow below to watch the photos made by Jean Daniel Lorieux.

Video

Evgeny Yakovlev also found the necessary funds to make a prestigious and somewhat romanticized documentary film about the shootings of this photo series. You can watch it by clicking on the arrow below.